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Literature Review

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Prepared by Michael Ling

LITERATURE REVIEW SAMPLE SERIES NO. 7 Thompson, C. J., Locander, W. B., & Pollio, H. R. (1990). The Lived Meaning of Free Choice: An Existential-Phenomenological Description of Everyday Consumer Experiences of Contemporary Married Women. Journal of Consumer Research, 17(3), 346-361. AND Zeithaml, V. A., Berry, L. L. & Parasuraman, A. (1993). The Nature and Determinants of Customer Expectations of Service. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 21(1), 1-12.

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Zeithaml et al. (1993) - a case of ‘Positivist’ research. In positivists‟ views, the nature of reality is considered objective and external to the human mind and the purpose of research is to discover universals about an external reality, which is in contrast to the views of the interpretivists that reality is socially constructed and “there are no universals that humans can know without doubt” (Willis 2007). In exploring the nature of customer expectations in the service context, Zeithaml et al. (1993) have taken a positivist stance to conduct an exploratory (or qualitative) research to understand the “different types of customer expectations and their sources” in order to develop a conceptual model of customer expectations of service. The objective of their research is focused on the explanation (erklärung), as opposed to understanding (verstenhen), of human behaviors, which is the main thrust of positivist approach. Purposive sampling has been used to ensure that there is sufficient coverage for “contexts where different sources and types of customer expectations might exist.” In total, there are 16 focus group interviews that comprise of eight business firms from selected service industries, with customers of five of these firms representing the consumer segment and customers of the remaining firms

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